Naperville charity provides help, hope

Little Friends provides services for children with autism, other developmental disabilities

December 15, 2006|By James Kimberly, Tribune staff reporter.

The tiny, blond 2-year-old sat on her mother's lap and smiled as a soothing piano concerto played and the woman tickled the child's thighs with smooth plastic rollers.

This simple scene, the mother said, was progress.

"She's actually been able to sit for a while. They've helped her to focus," said the mother, Jennifer, of her 3-year-old daughter, Katelynn.

Katelynn's journey to a seat on a soft red mat inside one of the satellite offices for Little Friends Inc. began more than a year ago when Jennifer noticed repetitive and disturbing behavior in her first-born child. Katelynn banged her head and bit her hands. Katelynn also was noticeably slow learning to speak, said Jennifer, who asked that her last name not be used to protect her privacy. Katelynn was diagnosed with autism.

Jennifer, who lives in Plainfield, was referred to Little Friends by Katelynn's therapists and has been receiving services since July. The results have been noticeable, Jennifer said.

"Initially, she had no language at all. Now she is able to say six or seven words. It seems she can understand me better. Head-banging and all the injurious behaviors have diminished," Jennifer said.

Jennifer's daughter is among more than 800 people who will receive services from Little Friends Inc., a not-for-profit established to help children and adults with developmental, emotional or behavioral disabilities. Little Friends is a beneficiary of Chicago Tribune Holiday Giving, a campaign of Chicago Tribune Charities, a McCormick Tribune Foundation Fund.

Little Friends Inc. was founded in 1965, and its main campus is on Wright Street in the heart of Naperville's Historic District. Little Friends offers a variety of services to adults and children with mental retardation, autism, Asperger's syndrome and other developmental disorders. Branch offices can be found throughout the suburbs.

Little Friends operates Krecji Academy in a former North Central College dormitory. The academy teaches students as young as 3 and as old as 21 academics and basic life skills. Sometimes, the lesson plan is as rudimentary as communicating with drawings or photographs.

In an industrial area of Downers Grove, Little Friends operates Spectrum employment services where adults with disabilities work, affixing stickers to plastic bottles for a firm that tests mechanical fluids, building boxes so that employees at a stationary company can focus on more important jobs.

"It keeps people busy and working and getting paid," said Louann Clifton, an intake coordinator at Spectrum.

But it is Little Friends' work with autistic children that is fast-becoming what the not-for-profit is best known for. Among the services Little Friends provides to families of autistic children is 15 hours a week of in-home support and therapy.

Little Friends also operates the Children's Center for Autism in Cary, which provides resources, advice and referrals.

And in Glen Ellyn, Little Friends operates a home for autistic children where four boys and two girls receive two years of intense therapy and education.

Heidi Pawelczyk's son Ernie, 9, was admitted into the residential program in July. From Sunday night through Friday afternoon, Ernie, who is autistic, receives therapies to help him speak more clearly, groom himself and use the toilet. He spends weekends at home in Darien with his parents and younger brother.

The decision to enroll her child in the program was difficult, Pawelczyk acknowldeged.

But Pawelczyk is convinced the program offers her son the best hope of improvement.

"My No. 1 goal is getting my son as successful as possible so he has a favorable long-term outlook," she said. "Any parent with a developmentally disabled child, they want them to be understood and they want them to be safe. I didn't feel that until we arrived here."

Mary Kay Betz of Montgomery said her son, Riley, 6, was diagnosed with autism when he was 2 years old. Betz said the physician who diagnosed her son told her "he would probably never speak and he would probably be institutionalized as an adult."

Betz began studying the available therapies, and Little Friends was one of the organizations that provided services. This year, Riley was enrolled in a regular 1st-grade class at McDole Elementary School, Betz said.